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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

80 Degrees, Fetch and Paneling

We couldn't have asked for a better spring weekend than this one. We left Atlanta about 7am and arrived at Mt. Matt at 11. We unloaded the car and sat down for lunch before getting to work.

The first project of the day was to do the sleeping loft floors. I was really excited about this. I am afraid of heights, even lofts, so I wasn't willing to get up there when it was just rafters. with a solid floor beneath me it was still going to be a little scary but I'll have to get use to it eventually.

With me firmly on the floor of the tiny house, Matt bravely climbed up to the loft and began placing the floor boards. This process went much smoother than the storage loft floors that we did the last time since we knew what challenges we would have. I waited patiently until the loft floors were done before climbing shakily up the orange ladder into the loft. I'd have to do it eventually. Soon we will have a little ladder built into the house and I'll have to sleep up there anyway.

I sat up there for a while, mostly because I was a little scared to get down. But I found the loft comfortable. It will certainly be more so once there is a mattress up there.

I looked out the tiny loft window, too. I was most amused by the warning sticker on the window frame itself.

Good thing that won't be a problem for us. Just gotta watch for Piglet the cat, though.

Speaking of pets, while we were up working on the loft floor our neighbor dog, Hash Brown, came up to hang out with us. After some time playing fetch, which is his favorite game, he settled in and hung out with us while we worked on the house. I even have photographic evidence.

After the loft floors were done, we did a little more preliminary work before we were ready to install one section of ceiling the next day. At about 6pm we headed down to the barn to make dinner.

I have been very happy with a recent acquisition. I spoke briefly before about the Camp Chef Camp Oven we got for Christmas.I made our second meal in it this weekend and it was awesome. I brought the components in the cooler and assembled it at the site: cooked penne pasta, really good Italian sausage sauce, slices of chicken sausage and mozzarella cheese. I mixed all but the cheese together in a foil pan and popped it in the camp oven at 350 until it was heated through. Then I sprinkled the cheese on top and let it cook until the cheese was melty. Dinner was great. I am really looking forward to cooking more with it and for groups.

After dinner, we wandered back up to the house, hoping to escape an impending thunderstorm, and did some little finish work like caulking the floor in the bathroom. While we were up there the storm started and we finished up and ran back down to the barn before it really started pouring. The rest of the night, Matt played guitar with the lightening in the background and eventually we went to bed. It had been and unseasonably warm day for WNC at about 80 degrees and only got down to around the mid 50s overnight. It was a perfect night for camping.

Sunday morning we got up around 8:30, got ready and drove toward Asheville for some coffee and breakfast. We also stopped at Lowe's on the way back to get some additional supplies. When we got back to Mt. Matt we launched right into work. The project for the day - paneling the bathroom ceiling to see what it was like to use the product. We figured starting with a small room (well, smaller room since the whole house is pretty small) we would really get a feel for the wood paneling that we chose and could make sure we made the right decision. It was pretty easy to install and we were very happy with the results.

We only did the ceiling because we really needed to get back to Atlanta, but we are ready to tackle the rest of the house the next couple of trips up.

This is me on the floor of the bathroom looking up at the newly installed ceiling. We are doing the bathroom in cedar while the rest of the house will be done in white pine.

Once we were finished with that, we could put the bathroom back together. We popped the shower into place and installed the final interior wall. It is getting harder and harder to take photos of the place as the spaces are getting tinier by the moment.

It's great to see the spaces inside coming together! I'm a little funny about heights myself. I laughed reading about the not wanting to come down part because that's what I find most daunting about going up on a roof or anything like that where I must come backwards over the side onto a ladder! Eek!

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“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”– Henry David Thoreau